The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-09-01
A NINE YEARS DREAM.
Singular Effect of a Bullet
Wound in the Head.
A SOLDIERS LOST MEMORY.
Living Apart From His Past for Years
His Memory is Restored by an
Involuntary Ice Bath.

looking sloop, with her PROV pointing
toward the old town landing. At he1
helm, watching the blue wreaths Of
smoke ascend heavenward from q
briarwood :pipe, sits man past the
summer of life. He has half soldier,
half-sailor appearance, keen eye, and
an intelligent countenance, His hair is
long and hangs nearly to his shoulders
curling at the ends. 1t is yellowish.
gray in color and very thick. A
mustache and goatee give him the ap-
pearance of veteran of Napoleon's
Old Guard, while the brass, eagle-em-
blazoned buttons on his waist-coat and
silver badge, inlaid with various colored
stones. inform one that he was once a
soldier in Uncle Sans army, and once
listened to the ominous zip of the mimic
bullets as they chanted their sanguinary
songs on the field of carnage.
| The name of this man is Lieutenant
]. N. Coffin. He was born at Ports
mouth, N. H., in 1926. His life and adj
ventures would fill volumes, and his
hairbreadth escapes and thrilling ad-
ventures would make scores of juvenile
Indian slayers and embryo Buffalo
Bills. When he became old enough his
mother sent him to school, and he
scarcely missed day during that period
of his life until he graduated at the
Portsmouth High School.
California had q fascination for him,
and thither he went and studied law.
While in the Golden State war broke
out with Mexico, and
he sHoULDERF Us MUsKET,
like many of his New gland brethren
to do battle in his couL 5ry's cause. He
was at the storming of Chapultepec, and
entered the Mexican fortress and made
prisoner of the commander before the
cclors were pulled down. For this
meritorious conduct he was made SER
geant.
This hardy son of the Granite
State followed the ever-varying
fortunes of the war, and at its close
men, headed by his old captain in the
Mexican war, John H. Jackson, who
was a colonel in the war of the rebel
lion, and who is now, or was recently,
employed in the custom house, started
from Panama in dugout for the CITY
of San Francisco.
Lieutenant Coffin left the party in
NJ zatlan and shipped before the mast
on French whaler, and was wrecked
in Mazatlan harbor by tornado. Only
ten of the crew of siXty-eight survived,
Lieutenant Coffin being one of the four
that reached the shore by swimming.
The rest we're rescued by the British
man-of-war Champion.
After spending many years in Cali
fornia he returned to his native State,
and when the war of the rebellion broke
out he enlisted as lieutenant in the
Thirteenth New Hampshire Regiment.
While stationed near the Portsmouth,
Va. Navy Yard, stray shot from the
enemy grazed the top of his head. This
wound had a singular effect upon his
memory.
FOR NINE YEARS
he lived as one in a dream, and almost
all the events of the war were almost
entirely forgotten.
He was sent to the hospital attached
to the Quartermaster's Departmental
Alexandria, Va, and was afterward
transferred to Lincoln Hospital in
Washington, D. G. His general health
was good, and he had the use of tools in
the Quartermaster's Department, to
which the hospital was attached.
Having learned the carpenters trade
in Portsmouth, n. H., when boy, the
old knack of handling the plane and
chiseI soon returned to him. ALI that
he did was in a sort of mechanical Wav.
His memory was so tickle that he was
Obliged to make note of everything he
wished to remember. If he went down
town for pound of nails or anything
else without memorandum of what
he was after, he never could rememb Der
what errand he started on.
In 1870, when Csptain Hall obtained
a commission for an Arctic expedition.
a friend procured Lieutenant Coffin the
Office of ships carpenter on board the
POIGris. thinking that change of eli
mate might be of benefit to him. Little
he thought of the consequences and the
peculiarities that were to arise.
The POIGris started On her ever
memorable cruise, and Lieutenant
Coffin gave entire satisfaction. He still
adhered to his habit of making notes,
and fortunately he did, for be would
have had no history of his life from the
the time he was struck by the stray
bullet until the return OF his memory.
nine years after. ~ ... g
1t may be remembered that the
PoIdris that season penetrated farther
north than any vessel had ever been be !
fore, passing several degrees, beyond
the supposed "open sea" of Dr.. Kane,
proving that navigator's story a myth.
After putting the POlaris
IL WINTER QUARTERS,
Captain Hall made a dog-sledge jour
ney of several weeks towards the north
pole. He reached latitude 80 deg. 16
min, which was the highest point ever
reached by a white man. On his re-
return, from great exhaustion, he was
taken sick and died. 1t was Lieutenant |
Collins sad privilege to make his
casket, in which he was placed and, fol-
low his remains to the grave, hundreds |
of miles further north than any other
Christian sepulture. 40 oRsdI sl
On the death of Captain Hall the
command of the Potarts devolved upon
Captain BudingtonI 1t was his inien-
ton, as soon as the chip was released
from the ice, to push On 30 far as he
could the ensuing season The ship
Il l..